Dorothy Rose Reinert

Dorothy Rose Reinert

May 10, 1932 — Aug 16, 2026

Dorothy Rose (Kogl) Reinert, a farmer and mother of nine from rural Atwood who served as a judge in Rawlins County for more than four decades and also delivered the mail, drove a school bus, and volunteered as an EMT on the ambulance crew, died Aug. 16, 2026, at Wheat Haven Home in McDonald. She was 94.

The daughter of Clemens and Alvina (Nehring) Kogl of Herndon, Dorothy was born on May 10, 1932, delivered by her father in the family car en route to the hospital. She was the second of five siblings who grew up during the Great Depression.

As a teenager, Dorothy had big plans to become a nun -- until she met Pete Reinert, a World War II veteran, at a CYO dance. They married in 1950, shortly after she turned 18 and graduated from Herndon Rural High School. They ordered a kit house from the Montgomery Ward catalog and assembled it just over the hill from Pete’s family homestead west of Atwood.

Dorothy was proud to be a farmer because Kansas farmers feed the world. She enjoyed spending time outdoors, working with her hands, gardening, mowing, burning weeds, and praying for rain. She raised pigs, milked cows, tamed kittens, and cleaned 200 chickens every spring, and she loved taking long drives in the country to check on the crops.

She and Pete were blessed with three boys and six girls and enjoyed watching them play sports and perform at school plays and music programs. Sunday church was a given and a college education was expected of their children.

When Pete’s kidneys failed because of a disease he had inherited from his mother, Dorothy trained in Denver, Colo., to become his dialysis technician, installed a kidney machine at home, and gave him his treatments in the evening after walking her Post Office route. When Pete died of a stroke in 1972, Dorothy was 40 years old and had five children still at home. Four of their nine children inherited Pete’s disease, and collectively they received seven kidney transplants.

When Dorothy’s deteriorating knees made walking the mail route painful, friends encouraged her to seek a desk job by running for Rawlins County Probate Judge as a write-in candidate on the Democratic ballot in 1974. With her youngest children in tow, she drove all the roads of Rawlins County, stopping at each farm and campaigning on her reputation as a baseball umpire, promising voters she would treat all sides fairly, and on her experience as a parent – once winning a newspaper contest to be named “Mother of the Year.” She said she would approach juvenile court cases remembering that every kid coming before her had a mother who loved him dearly and was dying of worry.

She won the race, becoming the county’s first woman judge, and was re-elected four times, retiring as District Magistrate Judge in 1997 after serving 22 years. She continued her yearly legal training and worked part-time as a municipal court judge in Atwood and McDonald, retiring again after a total of 45 years on the bench. Her most rewarding duties were as Justice of the Peace, presiding over more than 200 weddings and 80 adoptions, and working with teens and their parents in juvenile court. Her most challenging cases involved women and children needing protection. When a shortage of foster homes made emergency placements difficult, she was certified as a foster parent herself and welcomed several children and teens to the farm. One stayed a while and was loved as a daughter; Dorothy was thrilled to reconnect years later and they remained close the rest of her life.

While Dorothy was grateful for all her town jobs, her favorite by far was driving the school bus, where she said she could be another positive adult in a child’s day. She enjoyed the solitude of a quiet drive up the creek road early each morning, then picking up the students, drilling the younger ones for their spelling tests on the way to school. When they boarded the bus for home in the afternoon, she celebrated with them as they showed off the stars and stickers they had earned on their papers. On the drive home, she often joined in singing “Sippin’ Cider” or “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with her riders, occasionally broke up a scuffle, and assigned older kids to spend their time on the bus tutoring the younger ones in math. On the last bus ride before winter break, she gave each rider a silver dollar; on the last day of school, she detoured to the Tastee Treat, where she treated them to a slush or an ice cream cone and delivered everyone home late for chores.

Once her children were grown, Dorothy became a world traveler, carrying her favorite pillow with her when visiting family, heading to Vegas or “up the mountain” to the casinos outside Denver, and taking trips around the United States, including Hawaii, Alaska, and New York City, where she loved riding the subway and the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. She also traveled to Mexico and many countries across Europe and took two extended trips to Africa to see a friend working as a missionary in Nigeria. While there, Dorothy visited schools and medical clinics and fell in love with the people who were enduring political upheaval, violence, hunger, poverty, and the AIDS pandemic. She left behind her travel clothes and books as gifts for the women, purchased their fabrics and handicrafts to fill her suitcase, and funded a well project to bring clean water to their village.

At home, Dorothy was a constant in the lives of her children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. She taught many to drive on the country roads, shoot a BB gun, clean chickens, play cards, make her famous doughnuts, or mix the perfect cocktail. She welcomed everyone to the farm, embracing her growing family’s differences in race, language, religion, and politics, and she made no judgments about whom people loved, saying God trusts us to choose our own partners whose job it is to help us become better people so we can all make it to Heaven.

Throughout her life, Dorothy was comforted by family, neighbors, and friends and enjoyed drinking coffee and trading “news” with them at the grocery store or doughnut shop. She played Pinochle with her ladies’ card club regularly for 70 years, and enjoyed get-togethers of the Red Hatters club and her church’s Renew Group. She was a lifelong baseball fan and her most prized possession, hanging in her closet for life, was the perfectly pressed red ball uniform she wore as a teenager playing for the Herndon Red Hots.

In addition to her parents and husband, Dorothy was preceded in death by two of her children, Gary Reinert and Marie Braasch Moore; two sons-in-law, Richard Braasch and Douglas Moore; a grandson-in-law, Paul Mews; two brothers, Melvin (Regis) and Clemens (Rosemarie) Kogl, her sister Eileen Unger (Chuck); and Pete’s six siblings.

She is survived by seven children: Rose Blume (Jim) of Aurora, Colo.; Greg Reinert (Jenny) of Kansas City; Doug Reinert (Marla) of Atwood; Sherri Reinert-Gehman (Jim) of Omaha, Neb.; Cindy Shriwise (Mike) of Jetmore; Joyce Losey (Bill) of Ransom; and Patty Reinert Mason (Scott) of Washington, D.C.; her daughter-in-law Patty Reinert (Gary) of St. George; and her foster daughter, Regina Peszat of Lawrence. She also is survived by 25 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren, who were the joy of her life. Her brother Tom (Jean) Kogl of Herndon, lives on, as do many beloved in-laws, extended family, and friends.

The family will receive friends from 6-7:00 pm, with a Vigil at 7:00 pm Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Atwood. A funeral Mass at Sacred Heart is scheduled at 10:00 am on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, with interment immediately following at Mount Cavalry Cemetery, Atwood. Those wishing to remember Dorothy with flowers are encouraged to plant perennials in their own gardens. Memorial donations are suggested to the Atwood Public Library, where she cultivated her lifelong love of reading, mailed in care of Baalmann Mortuary, PO Box 391, Colby, KS 67701. For information or condolences visit baalmannmortuary.com

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